I was gonna put this up in the beginning of May, but then I didn't! It started with "I should wait until I finish Persona 3 Reload so I can cover it", then P3R took forever. Then the same happened with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and The Great Ace Attorney 2... and now it's September. Dang. Well, here it is.
This time: On Mount Ségou, Persona 3 Reload, Lost and Found, Holonomy, My Buddy Did Something Weird and Now I Have Feelings For Him??!?!?, Fangs For Your Concern, Blood in the Water, Bhavacakra, and Cat Planet.
On Mount Ségou
I really just tried this out on a whim, after happening across the developer @lrwerther's cohost page one weekend and seeing their pinned post about it. I'm so glad that I did.
I think this is in part due to them making this VN for a jam with rules limiting the amount of assets used, including the length of the script, but the result is that the VN feels focused, with often simple, seemingly straight-forward and readable, but evocative language that hides larger depths and hints at bigger ideas of the setting and story. The limited but effectively used visuals and audio also play into this - it asks me to imagine what is happening, rather than directly showing me any visuals of Ellie, Syna, the ship, the temple. Purely from a presentational standpoint (On Mount Ségou is much better written), it feels like a subtler and even more minimalist and atmospheric Otogirisou.
It all really works for me, and the short script allows for a clever format where a second "route" with a second ending becomes available after the first: initially, largely the same as the first, but it switches out passages to give deeper insight into things you might have only suspected at first. The VN is short enough that you can easily and comfortably play through both routes in one sitting, and read that additional prose while still having the first route fresh in your mind, as it changes and adds to your understanding of it.
I was absolutely enraptured by this when I first played through it. In an early draft of this write-up, I said that there was a risk I was falling prey to recentism, but as I'm editing this now a few months later, it still holds true: this is one of my favorite VNs I've played. And I mean it in the best way possible, when I say that something like this could only have been made by an indie developer.
It was to the point where I, upon seeing that it was released under a license allowing non-commercial remixes, was inspired to start work on a Swedish translation of it. Engaging with the script again on that deeper level, thinking about the function and form on both a macro and micro level, was very rewarding, in addition to how much I enjoy working with language in general. After creating a first draft of the translation, I talked to the developer, who was so kind as to give me a lot of further context for what they were going for, so I could match their intentions as accurately as possible! I couldn't ask for better conditions for a translation.
When I do these write-ups, I aim to avoid "spoiling" the story, to keep them accessible to readers who have not yet tried the games, and with a VN as short and focused as this, that means I should probably wrap this up here. If you're reading this, I want to encourage you to try it out - I haven't timed myself, but I want to say that you could probably play through both routes in twenty minutes, and it's playable both as a download and in the browser, so it's very accessible in that way.
Persona 3 Reload
I like Persona 3 a lot, for its story, characters, setting, music, and overall vibe, and had put off replaying it for years due to my belief that it would eventually get a remake. And then it happened! Wow! Would it live up to my hopes and dreams after falling in love with P3FES on the PS2 over a decade prior, and it becoming the gateway to Megami Tensei for me?
Mostly. Crucially, it made the Tartarus dungeon exploration - one of the most tedious and unfun parts of the original - more interactive and engaging; but the game also looks great visually; the new songs are among my favorite P3 music; the added interactions with the SEES members (including those who didn't have an SLink in the original!) are fun and made me more invested in them; and, thank god, the infamous transphobic scene with the trans woman NPC on the beach was rewritten entirely. I would be lying if I said that this isn't my favorite version of P3 and even among my favorite Megami Tensei experiences. That said... This game is much easier than the PS2 version.
Please don't take that as Megami Tensei Gatekeeping Elitism - I think it's good that these games offer an accessible experience! But whereas P3FES offers a challenge, P3R only gives the smallest amount of pushback, even on Hard, even during boss battles. It was particularly jarring with the final boss, who went down very quickly, robbing the moment of its intended gravitas. I don't need games to be challenging to have a good time, but I still wish this offered a little more in that department. I wonder if I'll do some sort of challenge run for my second playthrough when the FeMC mod is finished.
Lost and Found
This is the first of several games I played from Yaoi Game Jam 2024! It's a cute and fluffy story where the player-insert protagonist finds a Cute Guy's lost phone, and communicates with him through it until they have the chance to meet up and return it.
One of the strengths of this game is its unexpected amount of customization. Of course, you get to pick the protagonist's name and gender, but there are also choices where you form the protagonist's interests and attitude, that affect the interactions with the love interest, leading into several endings including a platonic one. Very neat! If you're curious, I chose to play as a guy despite being a trans woman in real life, because I had gone in wanting and expecting a BL story. I don't think I would've been able to if this had been earlier in my transition, when I was more insecure and dysphoric, but by now it was a fun experience.
There are some aspects I found a little weak, or that didn't work for me. The biggest is that, despite the game taking place over several days, there's little happening outside of when the protagonist and love interest are texting, which gave me a poor sense of the passage of time, in turn making the development of the relationship feel rushed. Secondly... this is very much a me thing, but while I found the love interest cute, he was slightly too obnoxious for me. Overall a good time, though, and I enjoyed the instant messaging presentation.
Holonomy
This one was also from the Yaoi Jam! Its excellent character art, and nice premise of the protagonist and a Cute Guy being lost in a fantasy dungeon together, made for a strong first impression, and it was one of the jam entries I was the most interested in checking out.
I quite enjoyed it - especially how not everything is overtly spelled out, and how we're allowed to think about what's happening on on our own, but I did think it ended too quickly. This is in part because it, like On Mount Ségou, was made for a jam with asset limitations, but even so, I wish there were more. I'm guessing that the limitations are also why we didn't get to see the very cute protagonist's design outside of the title screen, which also felt like a bit of a shame! I hope the developer makes a sequel or expanded version or something.
My Buddy Did Something Weird and Now I Have Feelings For Him??!?!?
Another Yaoi Jam game. This cute and fluffy story is set in just a brief moment, where the protagonist is resting his head on his friend's chest while playing video games and realizes he's attracted of him - most of the story is told through his thoughts as he processes his feelings. I have a soft spot for scenes of characters realizing they're queer in real time, and this was really nice.
I will say that the bit about how they had previously pretended to be boyfriends didn't quite work for me - at least as presented, it felt too unbelievable that the protagonist wouldn't have realized he liked his friend when doing that - and I think it would've worked better for me without that part. Still, I had a good time.
Fangs For Your Concern
This Yaoi Jam game is about the unseen protagonist's boyfriend coming back from a trip with his friends as a vampire. I wish it had a bit more depth and that the MC and vampire boyfriend were given more characterization, but it did have some funny dialogue, and the art and presentation with speech bubbles were excellent.
Blood in the Water
After playing this Yaoi Jam game, I learned that it's part of a series! Oops. It did work as a stand-alone game, though! A tragic and emotional single moment between two gangsters, with atmospheric writing and great use of camera movement to make it feel alive despite how it was made under the same restricted asset limitations as Holonomy and On Mount Ségou.
I should probably play the rest in the series to get a greater understanding of the characters - it refers to past events, which I in the moment felt I picked up enough on from context, but now I retroactively feel like I've been missing out. Gotta go back.
By the way, turns out this developer submitted two sequel games to this same jam, but the "2" in the other one's title, Ambition Plot 2, made me specifically put it off so I could try AP1 first... Which I haven't done yet at the time of writing.
Bhavacakra (demo)
It's called the Yaoi Game Jam, but it's really broader than that, and is for any games about the queer male experience. This is a combat-light, introspective RPG about a trans man finding himself in Samsara, where both the player and he himself learn more about him. It's only a demo, taking us up until the protagonist entering the titular Bhavacakra, so I don't want to give everything away, but I quite liked what I saw so far, and will look forward to future releases!
...This is an aside, but I also want to say that it's very nice to see some transmasc stories. And that, while the Itch page says it'll take about 20-30 minutes, it took me closer to an hour. It didn't feel like it dragged on or anything - I just wanted to mention this so you know what you're going into.
Cat Planet
I ended up playing this on a whim after a friend used a cute emoji of a cat from it and I asked what it was. This is a whimsical platformer where you play as an angel who can jump repeatedly in mid-air, at three different heights. She easily builds up a lot of momentum through this, and bounces at impact with walls and floors, making it tricky to make quick turns, come to an immediate halt, navigate tight passages in mid-air, etc.
It took a while to get used to, but it grew on me, and gelled well with the whimsical tone - especially as the game very gradually ramps up the difficulty. The entire first area has no obstacles at all - you just move from screen to screen while learning the controls and encountering silly cats - and then it introduces spikes, obstacles moving on a path, and homing enemies. If you touch an obstacle, you reset at a fixed point in the same room, allowing you to immediately try again. I had a great time with this - it was the perfect length, the right difficulty, and had very charming writing for the cats.
And also...
I was going to play the Yaoi Game Jam games Adventures In Clairune, Another Rose in His Garden (for its visuals, despite not liking omegaverse tropes), and Fried Chicken Wings Cause Love Fires, but I couldn't get them to launch on my Steam Deck. I might play them on my laptop at some point - I'd like to try as many of the jam entries as possible.
I'm also still playing The Great Ace Attorney 2 and The Thousand-Year Door on my own, and Disco Elysium together with one of my friends. Enjoying all of them greatly and wishing I had more free time.
By the way, I didn't intend to make the header image in this write-up look like a Mega Man level select, but now that it does, I won't shuffle it.
Originally posted on Cohost.
Comments from the original publication:
Rastagong @lrwerther, 6 Sep, 2024
(Reposting my comment on the main post rather than on the side reblog, easier to find this way.)
Gaah, I'm sure I said this already, but your review floors me, thank you so much!!
It's hard to believe On Mount Ségou could have such an impact on someone, I really am the one thankful you took such an interest in it to the point of wanting to translate it!
Also congrats on carrying through with this big review post! It does feel so satisfying to finally hit "publish" on a piece of writing you'd been sitting on, hehe.
Your bite-sized reviews of these Yaoi Jam games make me interested in some of them (I sometimes keep up with VN game jams but far too rarely).
(Also, so weird, didn't realise tagging on cohost doesn't actually send a notification to the tagged user, at least for me. Saw your post only by scrolling back.)
Alexandra IDV ✨💙 @AlexandraIDV, 6 Sep, 2024
On Mount Ségou is just so good!! When I have some more time, I have to play your other VNs, too! And thank you - it did take a while to write and edit this, but I feel that it really helps me to organize my thoughts, and it's nice to write something just for fun, not for work.
And yes, I too only realized now that tagging does nothing more than leaving a link to the user's page... I wonder why it is like that.